The first royal I was ever drawn to was not British at all. She was Austrian. On my early trips to Vienna I kept circling back to Empress Elisabeth, the one everyone …

For a long time I thought the Renaissance was an Italian story, and mostly a Florentine one. Botticelli, Michelangelo, the great dome over Florence Cathedral. It was only once I began visiting …

I had heard the name for years. Whenever something big was happening in London, a royal wedding, a jubilee, a state funeral, the cameras always seemed to be pointing down the same …

Walk into the medieval and early Renaissance rooms at the National Gallery in London and the walls turn to gold. Almost every panel is religious: a Virgin and Child, a saint, a …

I came to St James’s Park the way most people do, straight from Buckingham Palace, with an hour to spare and no real plan. I have done it a few times now, …

In my last post on the National Gallery I followed the Early Renaissance in Florence, and ended with three quiet workshop masters: Verrocchio, who trained Leonardo, Ghirlandaio, who trained Michelangelo, and Fra …

I have always loved the Renaissance, and not just the famous paintings but the idea inside the word itself: rebirth. After centuries in which European art had mostly served the church in …

Pasta is my comfort food. It takes me straight back to Italy, one of my favourite countries, and in particular to a bowl of pasta I ate in Rome that quietly ruined …

I have loved Botticelli since I was a girl. Long before I understood anything about the Renaissance, I knew those faces: the tilt of a head, the pale gold hair, the calm …

Trafalgar Square sits at the heart of London, and in early December it runs cold and bright, with the fountains going and a row of wooden chalets set up along the north …

I had waited a long time for this one. I had listened to The Phantom of the Opera for years and learned most of the songs by heart, yet I had never …

For most of my life, the Queen was in my wallet. I grew up in Canada, where Elizabeth II was head of state, and her face looked out from the twenty-dollar bill …